Don't Hang Up
by foreverwriting9
Summary: Five times Jane calls Lisbon, and the one conversation that changes things.


I.

She's sitting at her kitchen table, flipping through a magazine, when her phone rings.

"Hello?"

"There's a woman across the street from me who's stealing money from her husband's bank account to finance her romantic weekend getaway with her yoga instructor, whose name is...Sam. Or maybe Liam. Either way, he's at least fifteen years younger than her, and it makes her feel self-conscious."

Lisbon rolls her eyes at the ceiling. Honestly, is this how he spends- "Wait. You're witnessing a bank robbery?"

"What? No." He makes it sound like that's a ridiculous question, as though he couldn't possibly end up in a situation like that. "She's at a bakery."

Lisbon stands up from her chair, stretching. "Then how can you tell she's stealing from her husband?"

"She's wearing a mini-skirt," he says simply.

"Right, so naturally she's a liar and a cheat." Lisbon pauses a beat, and moves to snag a bottle of water from her fridge. "You know, Jane, maybe you should go do something else. Read a book or watch some TV. Normal people don't just sit around and people watch during their spare time. It's creepy." She realizes a second too late that he's not paying the least bit attention to what she's telling him.

"Oh, here's a winner. There's a man who just walked by, big guy, used to play football in high school. Now he's married to a dried up cheerleader, and they have two...maybe three kids, but he is irrevocably gay."

Lisbon leans back against her counter, fighting the urge to roll her eyes again. "I'm hanging up now, Jane. Goodbye."

"Lisbon, wait, don't-"

The phone clicks loudly in her ear.

"You are something else, Jane," Lisbon mutters softly as she sets the phone down. Eventually, she stops trying to fight the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, and grins broadly out the window, up into the blue, blue sky.

(He could have called anyone; Cho or Rigsby or Van Pelt or even Minelli or Hightower, but he called _her_.

He called her.)

II.

"Rigsby, do you know where Jane is?" She's been looking for him for almost an hour, and really, she has much more important things to do than search for her unruly consultant.

Rigsby shakes his head, sliding down slightly in his seat. "No idea, Boss."

"He said something about going to find more tea." Van Pelt's voice echoes from the kitchen, and Rigsby begins nodding vigorously. Lisbon frowns at him. He _knows _something.

Before she can fully scare him into a confession, her phone begins vibrating violently in her pocket.

"Lisbon," she says sharply as she turns toward her office and throws another frown over her shoulder in Rigsby's direction.

"Ah, here's my favorite CBI agent."

"Jane? Where are you? I've been looking for you."

He clears his throat, and Lisbon braces herself for some convoluted story that ends with Jane being thrown in jail.

"Well, see, I went out to buy more tea."

"Uh huh." Lisbon sits down at her desk, and begins flipping through complaint forms.

"And then, on my way to the store, I passed by Doctor Roth's practice."

"Jane," she says, warning. She thinks she knows where this is going, and it's definitely not headed in a _good _direction.

"Lisbon, you should be glad to know that I've eliminated one of your suspects for you," he says it casually, as though it's nothing but a game. (Lisbon supposes that to him, that's all it ever really is.)

"Oh really?" she shoots back, voice dripping with skepticism.

"Yes. There's no way Rob Grish could have possibly picked the lock on the door, then made his way to Roth's office, picked the lock on that door, and then picked the lock on the cabinet as well in the three minutes it took Roth to walk down the street and notice something was going on."

Lisbon begins flipping through the complaint forms faster, letting the words blur before her eyes. "And how do you know that?"

"Grish has fat hands." Jane pauses for a moment, and Lisbon can hear the quick breath he sucks in. "That and I tried it myself. If I can't do it in less than three minutes there's no way that Grish could."

She crumples one of the complaint forms in her fist. "You broke into my crime scene?"

"_Our _crime scene, Lisbon. Besides, I've now narrowed our list of suspects down, and I'm on my way to Marie's to pick up a doughnut and a coffee for you. Some people might consider me a poster child for the perfect consultant."

"I'd like to meet those people and prove to them how very wrong they are." She's pacing her office now, angry and annoyed and so, _so_ready to throw something at him the next time he sticks his head inside her office.

"Lisbon, sit down. Everything's going to be fine," he says with an air of authority. "I'm going to buy you the powdered sugar doughnuts, because I know those are secretly your favorites, and you can let Grish out of holding so that we can focus on catching the real killer."

She rolls her eyes. "Jane, you are incredibly frustrating, and no amount of doughnuts is ever going to change that."

He laughs, and the sound goes straight to her toes. "I suppose not. But they certainly might help get me back in your good graces."

Lisbon sighs, because she knows it's true, because they've been through this before, and they both know how it will end. (She will always forgive him, doughnuts or no.) "Get me some of the chocolate glazed doughnuts too," she says, just before she hangs up.

III.

Her room is quiet and her bed is warm, so Lisbon thinks that maybe she'll be able to sleep tonight. (Lately she's been having far too many nightmares about bloody smiley faces, annoying consultants, and _death_.)

Her phone rings as soon as her eyes slip shut.

"Jane?" It's nothing but a guess, an instinctual response that slips out of her mouth before she has time to think.

"Hi, Lisbon. How are you?" His voice sounds weird in her ear, strained.

"Great, Jane. I am great." She goes for deadpan, but Jane ignores it.

"That's good to hear, Lisbon."

She lays back against her pillows, waiting, and listening to the sound of him breathing over the rustling of sheets.

"You're in bed." The sudden sound of his voice makes her jump.

"Yes."

"I should hang up." He sounds almost _mournful_, and a shiver creeps its way down Lisbon's spine. "I had no right to assume you-"

"Hush, Jane." It comes out sharper than she intends.

"What?"

Lisbon lets her eyes slip shut. "Just, don't hang up, all right? We'll talk, about whatever you want. Magic tricks or couches or tea. Anything you want." She thinks she understands now; the nightmares that haunt almost all of her nights chase after Jane just as often. (Here's the difference: they tie him up and torture him, beat him into a bloody pulp, all before the sun rises.)

"All right," he says, his voice quiet and thoughtful. When he speaks again, he sounds like the Jane she knows, childish and joking. (She doesn't hate it.) "Can we talk about how that cop today sounded like Kermit and every time he opened his mouth you expected him to break out into 'Rainbow Connection'?"

Lisbon laughs. "Jane, I did not think that."

"You did," he insists. "It's ok though, because his partner did nothing to help that. He could completely pass for a slightly less furry version of Fozzy Bear."

"Jane," she laughs his name into her pillow, "that's not nice."

"But it's true."

Lisbon stares up at her ceiling for a moment, thinking. "I won't argue with that," she admits finally.

Jane chuckles. "Thank you, Lisbon," he says softly, because he knows she needs to sleep, but he is selfish and lonely, and he doesn't want to hang up.

IV.

She's standing in the CBI kitchen trying to find something to eat when her phone starts ringing.

Before she can even say anything, a loud banging sound bursts out of the speaker, forcing Lisbon to hold the phone away from her ear for a moment.

"Hello?" She wants to say _who the hell is this_, but she doesn't think that would be professional.

"Ah, Lisbon. Hi." A familiar voice practically shouts over the continued banging in the background.

"Jane? What the heck is going on?"

Now there's shouting to go along with the banging, and a few emphatic curse words drift above the noise.

Lisbon's stomach drops. "Jane, what did you do?"

"You told me and Rigsby to check up on the widow."

"I did," she agrees on a sigh.

"Well, I got bored," he says petulantly. "So I decided to leave Rigsby to his questioning and visit with Lee Fritz instead. And then I said something and good old Lee seemed to think that I was implying that he had an affair with his sister," he pauses, and the banging suddenly stops, only to be replaced with a menacing _I'm going to kill you and mount your pretty boy head above my fireplace_. "I'm hiding in a closet," Jane says sullenly, "and he's trying to break down the door."

Lisbon marches out of the kitchen, and stops in the middle of the bullpen. She is _never_ going to let him leave the office _ever_again. "Jane, I am going to-"

"Will you come help me, Lisbon?" The banging starts up again, but it doesn't drown out Jane's words. "Please?" (He sounds like a small child, and Lisbon will never admit to it, but sometimes she likes protecting him, saving him.)

She sighs. "I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Good," he says softly, and the banging suddenly intensifies. "Bring a gun," he shouts over the noise, "or maybe three."

V.

Lisbon walks into her apartment and slams the door shut just as her phone begins to ring.

"I know it's you, Jane," she mutters as she throws down her coat and just stares at the phone. She's not going to answer it.

Her answering machine clicks on.

"Lisbon, I know you're home by now, because I timed it." he pauses, and Lisbon rolls her eyes. "I also know that you probably don't want to talk to me right now."

She sits down on the chair closest to the answering machine and runs her fingers along the dips and lines of the phone, watching as the red light blinks steadily back at her.

"I'm sorry, Lisbon," Jane says, and Lisbon releases a breath she didn't even realize she was holding. "I'm sorry that I lied to you, I'm sorry that I got your main suspect killed, I'm sorry that I'm a pain almost all the time, I'm sorry that I don't apologize to you enough, and I'm sorry that this will be one of the only times I'm brave enough to do it."

Lisbon's fingers brush the top of the phone, but she doesn't pick it up, because she's trying to teach him a lesson. (But sometimes he can be so sweet, and that's almost enough to change her mind. Almost.)

"What I'm not sorry about though, is that I'm a part of your team."

Her hand tightens around the phone.

"And Lisbon? I know you're sitting next to the phone right now, wondering if you should pick it up and talk to me, but honestly, you have much more important things to be doing right now. Isn't there a book you've been trying to finish?"

Lisbon half nods, and then, embarrassed, moves away from the phone quickly.

Jane continues. "Anyway, I hope your evening is relaxing. You deserve it. Goodnight, Lisbon."

She waits for the answering machine to click off, and then sits back down in her chair, fingers pressing against the replay button. "Goodnight, Jane," she says as his message starts playing again.

VI.

Lisbon's sitting on her couch, half heartedly watching a cooking show, when her phone rings. She immediately switches the TV off and reaches for the phone.

"Hello, Jane." She doesn't expect anyone else to call her anymore, just him.

His words throw her off. (They are careful and shy and _not Jane_.) "Lisbon, if I uh, if I show up at your place in a few minutes will you come with me? Wherever I take you?"

It's probably a rhetorical question, because they both already know what the answer will be, but Lisbon answers anyway. "Of course, Jane." And then to lighten the mood she says, "Unless this is one of your harebrained schemes, in which case the answer is no, and good luck being released from jail without me there to bail you out."

Jane chuckles, but he doesn't necessarily sound _happy_. "It's much more important than that, Lisbon. Trust me."

"All right." The reply falls from her mouth quickly, and if this were anyone but Jane that might scare her. (They have saved each other, almost died together, and sometimes there is no one she trusts more than Jane.)

(But then there are times when his voice takes on a hard edge and he talks about _killing_, and Lisbon has to remind herself that she can't trust him, because he is broken and hell-bent and _alone_.)

"Thank you," he says, and she can't help but wonder what she's getting herself into. "Oh, and Lisbon? Bring a bucket of paint," he adds quietly, just before he hangs up.


End file.
